


you, on your part, have no need of me

by elenoir



Series: and all of these stars are silent [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Character Study, Denial of Feelings, Idiots in Love, Jealous Keith (Voltron), Jealousy, Krolia's a mom making a difference, M/M, Misunderstandings, Mother-Son Relationship, Mutual Pining, Shiro's a clone but he's still a dad, Slow Burn, so many meme references
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-24
Updated: 2018-04-24
Packaged: 2019-04-27 01:52:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14415105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elenoir/pseuds/elenoir
Summary: “I - we had a bonding moment. He was half unconscious. I sort of cradled him in my arms,” he admits.“That's pretty gay, Keith.”He sighs, resigned.“...I know.”In which Keith returns to the place he calls home, and Krolia doesn’t understand why her son is such a pining mess.





	you, on your part, have no need of me

**Author's Note:**

> Keith is reassigned, returns to the Paladins to operate for the Blade of Marmora, and his mother decides to tag along, because why not?
> 
> The title is a quote from The Little Prince, and the story iteself is inspired from all of those tumblr headcannons about Krolia interacting with the team. There are several distasteful iconic vine references littered throughout, so be careful. Also, basically everyone is hating on Lotor for literally breathing, which is his fault bc he's shady, but also it's not, because he's just trying his best. Krolia's trying her best too, but Keith is making it so difficult.

 

 

* * *

  

“Almost done. I got the flash drive, and Krolia’s meeting me in the next -” Pidge’s voice cuts off.

“Pidge?”

“Someone’s coming,” she responds lowly. Keith tenses. The control room, which once felt so familiar and whose walls stretched and curved like a dome of the galaxy itself, feels like it’s closing in on him, reminding him that he’s just listening in on a closed line, and not actually with them.

He doesn't have a lion anymore. He's not a paladin. He hears a sigh of relief from the other end. “Oh, it’s just - LOOK OUT!”

“Pidge? Pidge!” Keith barks, but the comm is silent, and she doesn’t respond.

 

* * *

 

Krolia falls into a crouch. “Are you ready to die?” the galra general leers down at her, his blade lowered inches away from her neck.

“I’m a bad bitch -” Krolia snarls between gritted teeth, “- you can’t kill me.”

From behind her, the green paladin mumbles, “Oh, my god.”

He rushes forward, sword drawn. Krolia veers easily to the side and slashes at his leg, her own sword blade loose in her grip. He grunts but doesn’t stagger, and he brings his sword down again. Krolia parries the blow, hooking the curved side of her blade with his and twisting her torso to deliver a kick to the gut.

Before her knee contacts his face, his hand flies up with surprising speed and holds it in place. _I’ve got you now,_ his smile says, and he sends her careening into the opposite wall.

Big mistake.

 

* * *

 

Through his comm, Keith hears Pidge scream bloody murder.

He shoots to his feet and curses himself for not going with them for this mission. Logistically, it made sense; Krolia knew the galra base the best, since she’d been the one debriefed over blueprints with the Blades, and of all the Paladins, Pidge had the highest aptitude for stealth and espionage, not to mention the capability to hack into the Galra mainframe. But it was supposed to be simple infiltration; get in, get the information, and get out. What had happened?

“Pidge, is everything okay?” Loud crashes can be heard in the background, and Pidge’s breath coming out in harsh huffs. Panic trickles down his spine, ice cold, until he realizes that she’s giggling.

“No, she's fine, she's kicking ass,” she responds.

“Then why did you scream?”

“Your mom’s a fucking meme, Keith.”

“What.”

“Keith’s mom? Krolia? Krolia?” he hears her say - through the comm, terrible shrieks and thuds of what he can assume to be armor hitting the ground play like a symphony. “Oh, my fucking god - he’s fucking dead -” Pidge is hyperventilating now, her breath coming out in short little gasps and fogging up the lense of her visor. “Shit shit shit - they’re going down like dominos - Keith, your mom is awesome. I can’t wait for her to meet the rest of the team!”

The mission is a success. Keith holds back a groan.

 

* * *

 

“Pidge?”

“We’re coming, Shiro!” Pidge pants, pelting down the hallways as fast as she can, Krolia on her heels. “We’re almost out of here, and we’re almost to the lions! I’m checking the perimeters -” she taps her wrist and pulls up a hologram, skidding around the last corner and scrambling towards the door.

The doors are already open - not a good sign, but they need a fast escape. She can already hear shouts ringing behind them; she couldn’t have expected their discretion to last long. They reach the opening of the loading dock just as soldiers round the corner behind them.

“Where’s the lion?” Krolia barks as they sprint across the lot. The green paladin ducked her head; somewhere across the dock, a ship had opened fire. Right on cue, the beast blinks into existence and grows larger in the sky, approaching faster than a comet. Krolia’s eyes widen, and Pidge only grins at her, excited.

“Green’s right ahead,” she replies, activating her shield. “We’ll be fine, but -” her eyes widen as red dots appear on the hologram. She opens her mouth, but a dagger goes whizzing past her shoulder; the soldiers had almost caught up to them. Krolia snarls, ready to engage, but a burst of green blurs past her vision, creating a wall between them and the soldiers.

The lion is of mammoth proportions, and Krolia is in awe. Only slightly. Meanwhile, Pidge frantically speaks into her comm. “There's a fleet of Galra on your six. Shiro? Shiro, do you copy? Shiro! You need to get out of there - Shiro, you're going to die!” she screams.

“God, I hope so.”

Pidge frowns at her comm. “What?”

“Nothing,” Shiro says quickly. “We need to form Voltron!”

“Wait, go back, go back!” Keith roars in their ears, and they both wince. “He’s still in there. TURN AROUND!” A shriek of gunfire rains over their heads like hail, and the two duck behind the corner of the green lion. Krolia reaches around to shoot back, and she misses whatever it is that Keith says next. Whatever it is, it’s as urgent as before.

 

* * *

 

Krolia doesn’t have a lot of time to admire the interior once they enter, but the two stop short at the figure already standing at the controls, back to them.

“You…” Pidge growls. “How did you get in my lion?”

Prince Lotor turns around, hands on his hips and a leer on his lips. Upon meeting him, Krolia disliked him instantly. Never mind the fact that he’s the former head of a genocidal army. He’s also shady as hell.

“You left it unlocked?” he tries sweetly.

“She's not a jewelry box, it doesn't _work_ like that.”

Lotor shakes his head, the image of cajoling. Pidge’s eye twitches. “I never said that, now did I? I just wanted to help. Like Allura, I seem to have some sort of preconceived bond with the beasts. Your lion wouldn’t let me pilot, goodness no, but maybe if I tagged along -”

“Oh, try me, bitch.” she hisses.

Lotor blinks. “What?”

“Never mind. Get out -” she grabs him by the armor and shoves him away as harshly as she can - “and stay out of my way.”

“I could still be of assistance -”

“Sit on the stairwell and shut up.”

“What?”

“I said, sit on the steps. My lion, my rules.” Pidge says irritably. Krolia watches the exchange, bemused; the prince only crosses his arms, petulant as a child, and Pidge settles into her seat - then she stiffens and stills.

Her eyes flicker side to side, as if she's listening to someone, but Krolia can't hear anything coming from the comms.

“What’s wrong? Why aren’t we leaving?”

The youngest paladin turns to look at her, face pale and stricken. “Lance - he’s still in there. Something must’ve interfered with his comm because he’s not picking up, but we can still locate him inside -” the words are barely out of Pidge’s mouth when Krolia stands and unsheathes her blades.

“I’ll get him.”

The Galra prince moves to block her way.

“You can’t, their reinforcements are already on the way,” Lotor urges. “He can still get to an escape pod, but it would be unwise to -”

“Out of my way, I’m a mom making a difference,” she snaps, shoving Lotor aside for good measure. The noise he makes as he falls over the railing and down the stairs is more than satisfying.

 

* * *

 

It’s simple. Get in, get the paladin, get out. Maybe kill a few people along the way. Most importantly, make a good impression on your son’s boyfriend, Krolia thinks as she makes her way below deck.

“He’s not my boyfriend!” Keith yells through the comm, and she winces at the high pitch of worry. She must’ve said that last part out loud.

“With all due respect, Keith, I saw your reunion. You two were all over each other.”

“It was a handshake!”

“You call that a handshake?” Krolia snorts. “That’s the gayest handshake I’ve ever seen in my life, and believe me when I say that I’ve seen gays in space.”

“What -”

“Shut up and trust me. I’ve got this,” she says in her most soothing voice, holding back a snort. She’s getting this kid laid, the least he could do is pretend to be grateful. “You can thank me later.” Whether it's because Pidge tells it to or it knows that Krolia won't stop, the lion opens for her without her having to ask.

She steps into the fray, and the lion takes off.

 

* * *

 

“And then she came in like _whoosh_ and those guys were like _“holy shit,”_ and she kebabbed them. It was awesome!”

“It’s already been established that Keith’s mom is a badass. What I don’t understand is why you were halfway across the base instead of at the lions. Where were you?” Pidge frowns. “Why weren’t you at the rendezvous point?”

At this, Lance swells up with pride.

“ _I_ was rescuing prisoners. I, uh, may have taken a wrong turn somewhere. But I found more cells,” Lance says brightly. “I had a feeling that this wasn’t exactly a first time for them, and they already knew where to go, so once they were out, they just got back on escape pods,” he shrugs. “I tried to call for backup, but something weird was messing with my helmet - I couldn’t get through to any of you.”

Pidge and Hunk exchange worried glances. “Never mind that, though,” he waved a dismissive hand, and grinned over the couch at Keith. “How is it possible, Keith, that something like you can come out of something like _that?_ ” Lance points to Krolia from across the room, and Keith sputters.

 

* * *

 

Keith had never been part of a team before Voltron, but he does know the importance of reading dynamics, and Voltron isn't so much a team as it is a family (that's another family they had unwittingly robbed Keith of. The regret throbs in the back of his chest and threatens to bubble through his throat). Keith knows that he didn't join the Blades (leave the Paladins) to fill some void inside, nor did he do it for his own well-being (or the being of others). He is not that selfless, and not nearly that selfish.

What puzzles him most is Lotor, who seems to have leached onto the team with the effect and intention of a parasite.

 _Replacement_ is bitter on his tongue.

He doesn't hate him. If anything, he thinks that he gets along with him rather well; he's half-galra too, after all, and he's doesn't mess around with formalities when it matters. He's cordial and diplomatic, like Allura, and almost as clever as Pidge, not that she'd admit it. He's a leader - not like Shiro, but close enough, and he did kill Zarkon.

That was one thing.

Still.

The Galran Prince is an odd one - he's cunning and cocky and slick in all the wrong places. He's loud, too - loud like metal against brick and the crack of a bloody jaw sort of loud, jarring and sharp. Keith can see that team doesn't entirely like him and can't trust themselves to - his pompous nature oozes out like sap, unable to be contained by the cracks in his armor.

Lotor’s presence in the Castle is like a ringing noise in the back of his head, something he’s aware of and doesn't quite like, but can't figure or reason away.

Why is Lotor in the Castle, anyway?

Keith was possibly the most cynical of all the Paladins, the most suspicious, and these faults have served him well.

_(He hasn't died yet, has he?_

_It’s not for a lack of trying.)_

Keith knows this now, and he knows that Pidge still thinks he's emo and Lance thinks he's untouchable and Shiro knows him well enough to accept it. Keith understands. It doesn't really matter all that much, because he only really trusts about eight people in the world, and the short list sure as hell doesn't include his own name.

Therefore, it stands to reason that his distrust of Prince L’Oréal is not born out of paranoia but rational thought and deductive reasoning, which is, in his opinion, the best way to go about matters concerning daily life.

It doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that the prince is Lance’s newly designated sparring partner, and while Keith’s been away and disillusioning himself with the labour of espionage, _he’s_ been holed up in the castle with Lance McClain of all people, most likely teaching him proper footing and how to keep getting up again and again, even when he doesn’t have to.

That’s Keith’s job.

The thought makes him want to hit something.

_(Don't let your feelings get in the way. Don't lower your inhibitions, not again. People could die.)_

 

* * *

The green paladin is even shorter than Keith, which is strange. Krolia feels as though she could literally step on her. She’s seen her in battle, and she knows that the paladin is formidable on her own, so she chalks it up to irrational maternal instincts instead.

She finds her after a few hours, tinkering with some mechanical object on her workbench. Krolia recognizes it to be galra technology but doesn't bat an eye. She's already heard of the paladin’s immeasurable intelligence, not to mention seen it firsthand, so it's gratifying to see something from the hands of Zarkon’s forces smuggled into enemy lines.

The girl glanced up at her when she comes in, but otherwise doesn't say anything. Krolia sits down across from her and waits for her to say something.

Nothing.

“Tell me about Keith.”

“He's fucked up, but he means well.” Pidge says immediately, setting down the bot.

Krolia raises a brow. “Oh?”

“Keith’s abandonment issues emotionally cripple him sometimes,” she says with narrowed, accusatory eyes. “That guy’s fucked up,” she reiterates, in case Krolia didn’t understand.  _It's because of you_ goes unspoken.

Krolia nods. “I'm sorry for that.”

“Tell that to him.”

“He's alone,” she says aloud. It doesn't surprise her, but it still makes her chest clench in regret. A wild animal left alone will only grow more wild and more lonely. “That's my fault.”

“No, he's not. He's got us, and you, now.” Pidge points out. “Other people care about him too, Krolia. We'll stick around, don't worry.” The last part doesn't come out as accusatory, and Krolia is reminded of the older boy she’s seen somewhere around the castle with Pidge’s eyes and hair color, and she thinks that maybe Pidge knows something about losing family.

She had to leave. She fucked that kid up. She knows that. But she had to go, and she'd like to think that she left him alive and _safe_ and she didn't have to come back, but she did. She’s here now.

A moment passes as Pidge returns to her bot and Krolia awkwardly shifts on the bench.

“So, Keith and the blue paladin are…?”

“Their status is ‘dorks in love, but it’s complicated’. I think they've always had a thing,” Pidge yawned, “but neither of them knows about it. The long distance hasn't helped, either.”

“Interesting.” It is. Krolia thinks back to first reunion she witnessed between Keith and his former team. The gay handshake. Ah, that explains a lot.

Pidge shrugs. “Yeah, that was...how it worked, I guess. When Keith was here, they'd always be off to the side, and they'd always pair up in missions and spar with each other, so it was just a _thing._ I wouldn't say that they knew each other the best; Shiro and Keith go way back, even before the Garrison,” Krolia’s throat tightens, “and Hunk and Lance have known each other for _forever._ But they had the most effect on each other,” she says slowly. “They changed the most around each other. We took it for granted a little, and I think that they did too. Then Keith left and...it wasn't the same. We had to find an equilibrium.”

 

* * *

 

“You've gotten better,” he tells him, the corner of his mouth twitching upwards. He had him on edge in the beginning, but Lance’s bayard wasn't half as effective at close range. Keith had him pinned from behind, one forearm braced against his neck and gripping his wrist, and the other hand pinning Lance’s arm to his side. Lance’s bayard is clenched uselessly in one hand, which Keith has a solid grip on. “Still a sharpshooter, huh?”

Lance’s eyes widen just a fraction before he grins.

“If you thought that was cool, check this out.”

Lance drops his bayard, worms out of the hold with the dexterity of an eel, and catches it with one hand.

“Impressive -” Keith starts to move, but he's on him in a flash. The rifle morphs into a sword in less than a second, and Keith can only gape when it's leveled at his throat. “Holy _shit_.”

Not now, gay thoughts.

 

* * *

 

“Hello, paladins,” Lotor says with a leer. “I'm sure you're doing something absolutely _fascinating,_ ” at this, Pidge rolls her eyes into the back of her head, hard, "but I was wondering if you'd like to look over those Altean scrolls we came across last week? It's about the connection between the lions and their pilots, and I thought that maybe you needed a little help with -”

“Fuck off, Loser.” Pidge says without looking up. She turns the page in her book, ignoring his scandalized gasp.

“It's Lotor.”

“We're not going to your fucking book club.” Pidge continues. From the doorway, Hunk stifles a laugh.

Behind him, Allura crosses her arms.

“They’re ancient Altean texts,” Allura corrects her, only slightly crestfallen. “And it’s not so much of a book club as it is an opportunity to learn about - “

“I’m afraid, Allura, that your friends just aren’t very interested in that,” Lotor says gently. Pidge gags and holds her book closer to her face. “They’d much rather spend time amusing themselves with -ah, this - “

“Quantum physics.”

“Delightful stuff, really.” Lotor smiles winningly.

“Yep.” Her grip is so tight that the page rips beneath her fingers. Hunk gulps and readies himself for potential damage control.

“We’d love to learn more about Altean history, particularly about the mechanics of their ships and how they work, but Pidge and I really need to get a head start on - um. Recalibrating the castle’s cooling systems? In case we run into another planet that wants to throw us into the sun.” Hunk smiles, and Allura’s apprehension melts.

“Of course, I understand completely.”

“Also, you ain’t shit, Lotor, so don’t even think about touching Green again, or I’ll be mopping the floor with your wig -”

“You little -”

The princess takes Lotor’s arm and steers him out.

 

* * *

 

Krolia thinks of a story she found once, a tiny book shoved into one of the vast corners of her desert man’s shack. She couldn't read it then, the language was still foreign to her, but he told her about a little prince who travelled from planet to planet. He loved a rose unconditionally, and in return it loved him in a way that was vapid and cruel and real. The little prince had many loves.

 _“But if you tame me,”_ said the fox, _“then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world.”_

So, this is the chump that her son’s in love with?

He owes her his life, as any future son-in-law should. She knows that he is brave, surmises that he is kind, and feels that he loves as well, is full of love and dwells in it like the swells of an ocean. It is bittersweet to watch her son in love, partly because she wasn't around to see him fall in it, and partly because she thinks that he is the fox.

He is wild and lonely and wants nothing more than to be tamed, which would be a scary and wonderful thing.

 

* * *

 

“Tell me about my son.”

“Keith’s - ah, Keith.” He glances up at Krolia, expecting the unimpressed expression that floats across her face before she assembles it into something unreadable. The resemblance to Keith is striking, and Lance doesn’t know how to feel. She raises an eyebrow, but remains silent, waiting for him to continue.

“He - um. He fights good?” It comes out like a question, and he winces slightly. “I didn’t know much about him before the whole - you know, ‘defenders of the universe’ thing,” he gestures lamely at the starry expanse stretching beyond the glass windows. “He was in the top of all of our classes at the Garrison, but he never really talked to me. Or anyone,” he backtracked quickly. “He didn’t talk to anyone, and he was kind of the loner, you know?”

“I have some idea,” she says wryly, and Lance wonders exactly how much of Krolia is in Keith, because the expression is so familiar he feels a slight pang in his chest. He ignores it.

“He lived alone in a shack in the desert, miles away from common civilization,” Lance continues, “so he had some serious serial killer vibes in the beginning, and I’m pretty sure he’s got, like, eight different cases of paranoia or something. The guy sleeps with knives under his pillow, thinks that Bush did nine-eleven, and has a conspiracy journal dedicated to Mothman,” he explains. “I don’t fuck with that,” he tells her, and she nods solemnly.

“I understand.” Krolia says, completely serious. Lance squints at that but doesn’t detect audible sarcasm. Maybe Mothman was a Galra thing? Her eyes narrow suddenly, and the yellowed whites of her eyes remind him of a cat sizing up its prey. “You’re close, then?” she says, and it’s not a question.

Lance blinks and shakes his head quickly, but her eyes only narrow further. “No - I - uh, I wouldn’t say that,” he says slowly, squirming under what feels like scrutiny. “We don’t get along very well. He doesn’t even like me.”

“Why not?”

“We’re like - rivals. You know. Me and Keith, neck and neck? I don’t know, I don’t know if he sees it that way, but -” he stumbles over his words and has to retrace his steps, “- we are. Were. He’s a pain in the ass and doesn’t listen to people when they’re worried about him, because he’s pulling crazy, psycho suicide missions half of the time and brooding alone the other half. He’s reckless, and charges into fights without thinking, and even though he’s probably the best pilot out of all of us, it’s a pain sometimes, because he doesn’t even think about getting hurt.”

 _He’s the best pilot out of all of us,_ Lance admits. It’s not the first time, but saying it out loud is like lining his tongue with lead. He doesn’t notice himself frowning, but Krolia does. “Sometimes you think you know someone, you know?” Lance sighs. “But then...you’re not so sure anymore.” Krolia looks frozen, like her eyes have glazed over and she’s turning to marble, she’s so still. “He puts up a lot of walls,” he says after a moment.

Silence.

Oh fuck. Was that what she wanted to know? What was she asking, even? He’s said too much; he wants to take it back, to talk about Keith’s favorite color or country song or something equally impersonal instead, but it’s too late now.

Silence.

He looks over, and her gaze has become heavy. “I thought as much. He gets it from me, I’m afraid.” She adds the last part quietly, and her grip tightens slightly on the handle of her blade.

“It's not all bad, you know. He tries not to, but he cares about people, and - he's an idiot, but he means well. He always does. He's kind of a badass.”

Pause.

“You're sure you're not his mate? You'd be remarkably well-suited for it.”

“No, no - we’re not like that - we’re not together,” he manages to get out, stumbling over his own words. “Besides, he doesn't even like me. We wouldn't be able to - uh,” _get along_ is what he means to say.

“Why not?” she asks, frowning. “It'd be a damn shame. If it's about physical compatibility, you don't have anything to worry about. The sexual tension between you two is thick. Breeding won't be a problem.” Lance gapes, unable to answer, and looks as though she's leveling a sword at him. She looks at him for a moment before understanding hits her like freight train. “It's because he's short, isn't it?”

“What.”

“Don't worry, I understand,” Krolia waves a dismissive hand. “He’s so...small.” She gestures with her forefinger and thumb. “Like a Parvolian. I worry sometimes that I could crush him,” she confesses. “Thankfully, he doesn't seem like the hugging type.”

“What's a Parvolian?”

“They're from Jejunin. It's a tiny planet. They're like elves,” she explains. “Tiny motherfuckers,” she adds under her breath. “Still, what they say about men with small feet isn't universally true. Keith's father was particularly well-endowed, and considering Keith’s Galra heritage, he'll be -”

“Oh my god.”

Keith’s mom is talking to him about Keith’s dick. Keith’s mom is talking to him about Keith’s -

“- more than satisfactory for your liking, I’m sure. Does that clear anything up?” she asks him, looking entirely too invested, like a saleswoman dangling paperwork in front of him.

“Yes. I mean, no, I mean - um.” His voice cracks audibly, and he winces.

“Hm…”

* * *

 

At eighteen, Keith didn’t leave his team like he left the foster homes when he was nine, all bared teeth and scraped elbows and a heart that was leaping out of his rib cage.

He doesn’t leave the best friends he’s ever had like he left Earth, quiet and quick and a little relieved.

Keith leaves Voltron behind like he left the little shack in the desert, set up like a shrine and left as a relic of something from the past (he got used to it after a while, and fell in love in a way that was slow and steady and ingrained in the cold nights and the harsher days and the faint whisper of family).

He leaves feeling like he’s failed them.

 

* * *

 

He joins the Blades, and doesn’t truly feel as though he wants to belong but feels as though he should.

Things don’t come easily to him anymore, but it’s a good feeling.

Waking up is always like a slap in the face or jolting into cold water drunk. He never really gets used to it.

He can’t fall asleep in the common rooms, because there isn’t one.

There’s no Pidge chattering in the corner, no Hunk in the kitchen, and no Shiro.

There are masks, though, and he can’t see anyone else’s eyes or even their mouths when they speak. It’s in the middle of sparring with some anonymous partner that he realizes that they can’t see _his_ face either, a revulsion and a comfort.

Routine cuts through his knuckles and stretches him longer than he can go.

At nineteen, Keith comes to the conclusion that the universe, for all its depth and its glittering dead stars, is cold.

 

* * *

 

If there's one good thing about Lotor, it's that he spars like a devil, and Lance has been needing something less (and better) than a partner for a while. Fighting with Allura rarely goes too well; it either ends too quickly, with her losing patience and sucker punching him into the ground, or leaves Lance feeling more confused than before. Allura knows him and is kind, for all their differences, and he knows that they’re not really trying to hurt each other.

(Keith knew him too, but Lance didn’t always know if they were trying to hurt each other or not, which made _him_ infinitely better.)

Then there’s that other thing; Lotor’s also gorgeous, with a lean frame and high, aristocratic bone structure that was both sharp and inviting at the same time, like the luminous gaze of a cat waiting to pounce. Come to think of it, Lotor did give off that sort of vibe; Lance’s nerves always flared up whenever he was in the room, and he kept a watchful eye on him, which was probably why he ended up noticing the narrow cheekbones and the silky hair and -

Because he could probably kill him, of course. It was best that he watched out for anything suspicious.

Watching Keith was like watching art - like a prolonged snapshot of some wild thing in nature, ripping off heads. He moved faster than anyone Lance had ever seen, even faster than Pidge, and there was something brutal about the way he fought. He didn’t fight for the end. He moved in combat as though each step would be his last, and some fire or fury or brimstone fueled him with sincerity.

On the other hand, watching Lotor is like drawing out one single, baited breath, and waiting for something terrible to happen. His skill is so clinically _perfect_ and blatantly impersonal that it _hurts_ . That’s why when Lotor extends an invitation to Lance, and _Lance specifically,_ he immediately panics, stutters something out, and makes a beeline for his own room, convinced that he’s fated to die within the next twenty-four hours. Why else would Lotor want to spar with _him?_ What could that do for _him,_ other than a laugh or two?

 

* * *

 

Lance doesn’t come out of his room until dinner time, and by then Lotor is already seated at the table, chatting amicably away with Allura. When Lance moves to take his seat, Lotor looks up, eyes gleaming.

“My offer still stands, you know,” he mutters, leaning forward under the guise of passing a bowl of goo. His lips barely move, and he says it so faintly that Lance almost doesn’t believe that he’s heard anything. “If you’re still shy about that sword, don’t worry. I’d love to take some time off for some private lessons.”

He's going to say no. He's going to refuse, because Lotor isn't to be trusted, and they all know that, except for Allura.

He sees the way he looks at him from underneath his eyelashes, how his head tilts in _challenge_ and how his gaze is holding _Lance_ and Lance alone. It's a little familiar, but Lance can't quite put a finger on it.

Lotor smiles like a honey trap, sweet and warm and amber, but the pointed ends of his canines stick out, ever so slightly.

Lance nods.

The honey smile gets wider.

 

* * *

 

Lance begins to improve rapidly, faster than he ever did with Allura. Coran is delighted, and Shiro is proud.

 

* * *

 

The thing is, if sometimes Lotor gets too close, if he gets Lance into a hold that he _knows_ he can't get out of and just stays like that for a moment too long, Lance isn't going to complain.

It's the heat of the moment and the adrenaline pumping through his veins, egged on by the fact that Lotor’s build is slim and Adonis in a way that isn't quite right but isn't quite wrong, either.

In other words, Lance apparently has a thing for attractive aliens, and Lotor fits the bill to the T.

At first, Lance thinks that it's unintentional, and it's just his own hormones acting up. After all, training involves at least two clammy bodies pressed up against each other in some capacity, doesn't it? But he notices the way Lotor’s eyes follow the bob of his jugular when he takes a swig of water and sees the honey smile widen when he gets something right on his own.

“Nice job, blue,” Lotor purrs from behind him, lips brushing the shell of Lance’s earlobe. “You lasted much longer this time.”

“I try,” Lance pants, and doesn't bother to correct him. _Red_. Lotor has him beat, again, with the blunt end of his blade pressed against his throat, pinning him between the weapon and the brunt of his body.

They remain that way, rigidly curled inwards towards one another; Lance is breathing visibly harder than Lotor is, but both have a faint sheen of sweat on their brows, and Lance can practically feel his heart palpitations through their armor. It's more than a little homoerotic, he won't lie.

There's a cough from the doorway, and Lotor is off him immediately.

“Dinner, already?” he asks mildly, sauntering out of the room. Lance shuffles past Shiro but can't quite look him in the eye.

 

* * *

 

Keith comes back (for good) the month after, tentative, skittish, and seconds away from fleeing again. Lance acts without thinking, lunging forward and taking his hand in his.

Don't go. I won't let you.

“Hey, man,” he smiles, and is relieved when his voice comes out evenly. “It's good to have you back.”

He's not so much shaking his hand as he is grasping his forearm like a lifeline, but Keith takes it anyway, leaning hesitantly into the touch. “It's good to be back,” he says quietly, eyes locked on his. Keith’s fingers graze his elbow.

Lance’s heart stutters.

Lotor’s gaze is beady and proprietorial, and clings to Lance’s back like a target. He shakes it off but doesn't notice Keith shoot a look over his own shoulder, as if he senses the tangible space between the two.

Keith's eyes narrow, but Lotor only grins.

 _Nice try,_ he seems to say. _But he’s mine now._

 

* * *

 

“Galra mate for life, you know. It’s alright to be a little possessive,” she assures Keith one day. “Mating season will be starting up soon, and I’d be surprised if there weren’t any instincts kicking in ahead of time, on both sides. It's the pheromones.”

Luckily for her, Keith is, as Lance puts it, “a badass”, which is one more thing they have in common besides genetics. Therefore, it's easy to follow him to the training room just to see what he can do. Never mind the fact that she's observing him as much as a mother would a child as under a clinical eye. He likes to train against bots; he has excellent form, and near-perfect technique. He's fast, agile, and uses blades like a vicious extension of his being, dispatching his opponents almost as quickly as she could herself. God dammit, she did a good job, didn't she?

As it turns out, her son is a moody little shit - he's shooting a glare in the general direction of the training room like he isn’t sure who he'd rather murder first. Lance is training with the Altean princess, and over the past hour his footwork has improved, but his opponent can still disarm him in a second, much to his dismay. He hits the ground often enough to the point where Krolia can see the stars dancing around his head.

She’s just spent at least an hour observing her son, who is in turn observing the blue paladin with an expression that looks like a hybrid between fond and furious.

“He’s not my boyfriend!” Keith hisses, sounding strangled. Krolia almost beams; her son really is adorable, especially when he’s jealous. “And I’m not - he’s not -”

Across the room, Lance jumps to his feet, and Keith’s eyes flicker over to him again, almost involuntarily. “Look at him,” Keith mutters as Lance waves his broadsword around with more bravado than skill, “he looks like an idiot.”

Just then, Lance gets in a lucky hit and disarms the princess in one quick movement, and the corner of Keith’s mouth lifts. The look in hiseyes softens, and Krolia gets the distinct impression that this isn't the first time it's happened.

She looks on as the blue paladin whoops over his victory, thrusting a fist into the air. He does indeed look like an idiot - an exuberant one, at least.

 _But he's your idiot,_ she thinks with a smile.

Keith’s face is on fire.

“I gotta go.” he mumbles quietly.

Just then, Lance turns to look in their general direction; Keith’s back is turned, but Krolia catches the way that Lance’s face falls just a fraction. He watches Keith leave with something akin to disappointment.

Ah.

Infidelity will not be an issue.

 

* * *

 

The Blade of Marmora still checks in occasionally, in person, even though they have two agents personally residing in the Castle. It doesn’t make sense to Lance; sure, maybe he’d been badgering Allura about closer contact with the Blades being of vital importance, but now?

“God, just look at him,” Lance mutters under his breath, disgusted. “He’s hot, Asian, and popular. Fucking dweeb.”

“Are we Keith-watching again?” Pidge gripes, popping up behind him. He almost shrieks, but she claps a hand over his mouth at the last minute, squinting over to spot he’s been conducting expert surveillance on for the last few minutes. “Huh, I guess he did make some Galra friends over with the Blades. Neat.”

“No, Pidge! Not neat! It’s Keith, and he’s fucking lame!” Lance hisses, gesturing to the small masked group surrounding him. Keith doesn’t exactly look upbeat, per say, but he doesn’t look awkward, either. He clearly knows them, and familiar enough.

She raises an eyebrow. “It’s lame that he has friends that are at least seven feet tall?”

“It’s lame when you’re as tall as Keith is.”

“And it’s not lame that you’re stalking someone from behind a pillar because you’re so thirsty that any moment Keith isn’t spending time with you is time wasted?”

“Yes - wait, no! No! Just take the binoculars.”

 

* * *

 

Krolia found and fled the desert.

Once, someone called her _sweetheart. Darling,_ he drawled.

Good times. Or, they must've been - pain wasn't associated with those memories. Longing, happiness, and the sense that something was missing, maybe.

The sky looked different there. It looks different on every planet, different stars and colors depending on the time of day. Sometimes the air is toxic and other times there simply isn’t enough of it, but there on Earth, the very marrow of Krolia’s bones feel smaller and heavier compared to the great expanse of the galaxy. The air there is crisp and cool, but alternatively hot and stifling. She liked it, and she liked the sky.

 Once upon a time, she was just Krolia, and she met a man out in the desert.

It comes back to her more clearly this time, only these memories are shorter - sharp, distinctive, but marred by a rush of static. Maybe this is what love feels like.

She remembers a connection, tentative at first, that grows grudgingly. She can't bear the heat that beats down on her neck and back, and the way her sweat travels in rivulets inside the crevices of her armor. He is a cooling presence at her side, which surprises her.

A man's voice, low and gravelly, scraping his back with her fingernails, lips on hers, red, red, red, and then -

The birth, for all its meticulous planning, is a harried and chaotic one. Krolia is confused and in stitches of pain, and bleeding with a sticky sort of feeling. Apprehension. She draws the curtains like they are her final breaths, shaky and desperate, and watches the sun-streaked desert sky fade into orange and purple and red, off into the horizon.

Something stirs and trembles, and she falls away from the window with a cry, plucking images of purple against red and the hull of a ship crashing into earth and the way that his hands cover hers - she knows that she will birth a boy.

 

* * *

 

 She leaves the desert.

She meets him again, years later. Space is cold. The Galra empire still has an iron grip, but it’s loosening, clenching and uncurling like the tide.

The Blade of Marmora. _Revolution._

It tastes like steel on her tongue.

Space is more familiar than Earth ever was, but never as comforting. Time has passed and settled into bright charcoal lines again; gone is the streaked sky in the middle of nowhere. Gone is the man you met in the desert. But you’re still here, still breathing, and so is -

 

_( “I left you once. I’ll never leave you again.”_

 

_“How were you able to use it?” He asks later. Something warm begins to click and turn in the back of your brain, and you can't help but respond,_

_"Because it used to be mine,”_

_and then the sky in the desert comes spilling from the crevice of your mind and back to you. You want to leave it again, but this time, leave it with -)_

 

\- Keith.

 

* * *

 

She’s proud of Keith, more than he knows, but to be honest, she doesn’t know how to bring it up. He'd been nothing but civil towards her, and painstakingly sincere, but she sees the tense of his shoulders whenever she approaches, and the way his expression steels when she leaves.

I left you once.

Never again.

Based on what the Blue paladin had told her and what she’d gathered from their limited interactions, Keith was possibly more than a little emotionally constipated. They’d have to work on that.

“So, tell me about him,” she says, aiming for casual, eyes flickering across the common room to where the blue paladin is sprawled across the couch with his head cradled in his friend’s lap, talking animatedly and waving his hands.

Keith looks up from his knife.

“Who?”

“Your partner - tall, skinny, blue eyes,” she clarifies. “The one you've been following around.” Keith flushes and glances around - _someone could hear you_ \- and crosses his arms over his chest, shoving his hands underneath his arms.

“Lance?” he asks, in a hushed tone.

“Mhm.” She looks down at her son, unimpressed.

“...what about him?”

“He’s...

“Do you treat him well?”

“I - uh -”

“You're going to let him get away, aren't you? You don't want to tell him how you feel, but he's not the smartest, and he needs more than a push. He needs a shove. Don’t be a pussy, Keith.”

“I'm not a pussy!” he hisses, a little too loudly. Lance and Hunk look over at him, eyebrows raised. “I'm not going to make him do anything he doesn't want to do,” he adds, more quietly this time. His friends look away, Lance still sporting a suspicious look on his face. Krolia hums a bit, tracing the blade of her (his) knife with a fingernail.

“He's yours, though, isn't he? You wouldn't rather mate with anyone else.” It's not a question, it's a statement. He doesn't deny it.

“He doesn't belong to anybody. He belongs to himself.”

“And what about you?”

Keith doesn't have a response for this, and instead remains silent.

“Sorry.” he says after a moment, deflated.

“It's alright.” She knows what he's apologizing for. You haven't disappointed me, she wants to say, but she isn't quite sure how. His brows are furrowed, and she can see more of his father in him in that moment.

Krolia joins him in watching the blue paladin’s uproarious laughter for a moment, glowing like molded copper, his guard completely down. Keith looks as though he is basking in a sunset all to himself.

 

* * *

 

Krolia wasn't a big fan of Earth lore, but Keith’s father talked about it sometimes, bits of mythology and history intertwined into one conspiracy about the world. She loved to listen to him.

Keith is an Icarus, Krolia thinks. He's wild and magnificent and one day he will fly too close to the sun.

Keith looks at Lance as though _he_ is the sun, as though there's some gravitational pull that will send him careening into orbit (and he's probably right. It happened to her and if Keith stops deluding himself it'll happen to him). Krolia wishes that she hadn't been gone for most his life, hadn't just met him after he grew into his own bones and skin and became a person without her.

What is he without her?

Now her son is in love with someone, with the ferocity of a first and a last love, with the longing of a lover and the emotional constipation of a child who doesn't know what to do with himself. He could've done worse. “He's pretty. Nice job.” Krolia pats him on the shoulder and stands. “He’s a little skinny, but he’s healthy, and has good childbearing hips.”

“Why would that be important - wait - are you saying that he could get -” Keith sputters. 

“Only if you try. You have good taste, Keith.” He gets it from me, she thinks. After a pause, “I’m proud of you.”

Nailed it.

She leaves the room quickly. The yellow paladin had mentioned something about creme brûlée in the kitchens, and she was starving.

  

* * *

 

Krolia is right. Lance _is_ pretty.

It’s not supposed to be a compliment, not really. Keith is pretty sure that it can be said objectively that Lance is handsome, with his olive skin tone, lean physique, and _legs_ that go on forever, and he’d be lying if he didn’t say that sometimes, _sometimes_ when he left the room wearing paladin armor Keith’s eyes would flit downward to the way the bodysuit clung to the back his thighs and -

He’s getting ahead of himself. Lance is objectively good-looking, for a normal person, anyway, and Keith is fine with that. That’s not to say that none of his other teammates aren’t attractive, either. Objectively speaking, Shiro’s probably a literal god (Keith has seen the man bust a gasket insisting that “water is wet,” though, so perhaps not), Allura is an actual princess, and Hunk is a perfect human being in general. Coran is like an uncle, and Pidge’s one love is science, as far as he can tell, so he hasn’t thought about it, but the point is that despite all and any of Lance’s physical advantages, he’s not special. Not really.

He’s just handsome. Pretty, even, when Keith moves on from the legs and the backside and up to his face and the way his dimples flicker in and out of existence and how, in the right lighting, his eyes are bright and cerulean, but sometimes they look navy and endless, and it’s so utterly Lance that Keith is fascinated anyway.

It doesn’t really matter, though. He’s thought Lance was attractive even in the beginning, and pretty isn’t exactly a new development, either.

Beautiful is, though.

Who is he kidding?

 

* * *

 

“We’re not a couple.” Keith says flatly. Pidge and Hunk exchange glances, and Keith gets the sinking feeling that they’re about to start painting his toenails next. The three are huddled in Hunk’s room on a mountain of assorted blankets and pillows - Pidge’s room is too cramped and messy for anyone to take two safe steps, much less sprawl out on the floor, and Keith’s room still feels hollow and full of dust, a reminder that it’s been revisited, and not slept in for months on end. It’s not a slumber party, but it’s damn-near close. The only thing missing is Lance, who’s currently sleeping off yesterday’s mission alone. No pillow fights, then.

“Not yet, you aren’t. And if you don’t hurry, you never will be. In all the years I've known him, Lance has a type -”

“Yeah. Female and willing,” Keith snaps back, hating the way his voice twists and sours. At the same time, Hunk says,

“Angsty, half-galra, and with a heart of gold? Besides female and willing.”

“Oh. Um,” he rubs the back of his neck, and Hunk turns over on his back, hugging a pillow to his chest, lost in contemplation.

“And Lotor definitely checks all of those boxes. Well, maybe two of them, but still. They’re getting closer by the day, and I hate to say it, but what Lotor lacks in personality he makes up for with his hair. Long and luscious,” he elaborates at Keith’s confused expression, “the man looks like the evil doppelgänger of Tom Hiddleston auditioning for a Pantene commercial, and if Lance has another type besides living girls, it’d be an Altean in a Pantene commercial. We know Allura’s out of the question, but guess who else on the ship checks that box, too?” Dammit. Hunk must see his face fall. “That’s right, buddy. Fucking Prince Loki.”

“You mean Lotor?”

“Right, right.”

Lance isn't stupid - he's not a technological prodigy, and he's definitely a dumbass, but he's strategically ingenious and perceptive to boot; the Galra prince tried to kill the team several times. There’s no way he'd actually fall for Lotor, right? Murderous isn't exactly Lance’s type. He thinks of Nyma. Aloof, attractive, and flirtatious might be, he realizes. “Am - am _I_ -?” _Am I attractive,_  he tries to get out, but the words are stuck in his throat.

Hunk shoots him a look along the lines of _bitch, are you kidding?_ but it doesn't do much for Keith. He's never really had to worry about it before; he's never been under the impression that he’s ugly, per say. He was mistaken for Shiro’s actual brother all the time at the Garrison, and he figures that alone speaks for itself.

Still, he tries to wrack his brains for one instance, however brief, where Lance expressed actual physical attraction to him. Nothing. A self-conscious hand drifts up to his hair, and he frowns. “It’s the mullet, isn’t it?”

At the same time, Pidge says, “It’s because you’re short, probably. You look like someone could yeet you down a hallway like an empty can.”

“What?”

 

* * *

 

“Lotor acts like a Greaser raised in a white suburban neighborhood. He may have Allura fooled, but he's full of shit.” The scorn on Hunk’s face surprises Keith; it’s the most cross he’s ever seen him.

“It's been like thirty minutes,” Pidge whines from behind her laptop. “Give it a rest - this isn't an actual slumber party, you know.” She's lying; it is, and she knows it.

“Do you think he's going to betray Voltron?” The surge of protectiveness doesn’t surprise him; maybe he isn’t part of the team anymore, but these are his friends, and anyone who tries to hurt them has to go through him. Pidge shrugs and readjusts her glasses.

“I don't know. He basically defeated Zarkon for us, and Allura trusts him. He definitely has ulterior motives beyond his daddy issues, but -”

“But we all sleep with our doors locked at night now, just in case,” Hunk finishes. “Either way - and you didn’t hear this from me - if you ever spend more than ten minutes in a room alone with him, you'd absolutely lose your mind. He's a valuable ally, don't get me wrong, but literally everything he says has some sort of convoluted double meaning. His secrets have secrets,” he shares with a whisper.

“Shady bitch,” Pidge mutters into her laptop.

“If he was a spice, he'd be flour,” Hunk continues.

“That's not a spice -”

“If he was candy, he'd be black licorice.” Pidge’s eyes are already back on the computer, fingers flying across the keyboard like a pianist. From over her shoulder, Keith can see bright neon code flashing across the screen. “No one in their right mind likes it unless they’re lonely.”

“I kind of like -”

“Don't tell him this,” Hunk says in a whisper, “but I don't like inviting him in the kitchen because I'm kind of afraid he'll go all Hannibal Lecter on us. He looks at Lance and Allura like he's going to eat them.” Hunk shivers at this, genuinely disturbed. “And he didn't like my creme brûlée. I picked up actual ingredients from the last planet we visited, and it tasted almost exactly like chocolate. There's no excuse.” Pidge only shakes her head sadly.

“Hoe.”

Firstly, it sounds ridiculous, because Hunk is a fabulous cook, and Keith doesn’t need to be Lance to know that everything he made was gold. Second -

“ _Eat them?_ ” Keith exclaimed.  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Hunk waves a hand.

“Oh, yeah, he hardly takes his eyes off one of them at a time. It’s kind of creepy. I'm surprised that Shiro hasn't combusted by now. Anyway, my point is that he's gorgeous, but whereas your personality is like a gold nugget covered in dirt, his personality is like - like -”

“Cheap ramen.”

“Hey, I like ramen!” This time it’s Hunk, sounding affronted. Pidge pats his arm.

“No, you like quality food. I'm talking about cheap packets that you eat when you're on the brink of poverty and trying to feel something before the end.”

“Harsh.”

“It’s the truth.” Pidge leans back and cracks her knuckles pointedly at Keith. “I know all,” she says smugly, eying a screen filled with a glowing alphabet of symbols and letters that Keith doesn’t understand, “which makes me qualified to listen to your relationship drama. Or issues in general. Whatever,” she waves a delicate hand, and Keith is reminded of a princess signaling an execution.

She’d make a bratty princess.

“Last time I checked, you were a computer specialist, not a therapist,” Keith points out, to which Pidge glares at him. “Besides, I don’t need couple’s therapy.”

“I’d prefer to call it ‘counseling’, and I’m a paladin of many talents,” she sniffs. “And there are a few crucial differences between _couple’s_ therapy and _love triangle_ therapy. Think of a relationship as a bicycle; two wheels working harmoniously together to move themselves forward. A love triangle is like a bicycle with training wheels. It’s great for getting you started, but eventually you have to come to terms with the fact that you’re in your late teens, and everyone is judging you for your inability to just ride a fucking bike. Am I making any sense?”

“No.”

“Figures,” she snorts. “Luckily for you, I already know exactly what I’m talking about, and Lance is one of my best friends, so I know him like the back of my hand. Tell me what’s going on with you two.”

“Seriously? First my mom, now you guys -”

“Your mom?” Hunk asks gleefully. “Dude, even your mom ships you?”

“That’s not important. It's not going to happen. He doesn't even like me. And how do you know Lotor’s even interested in Lance?” Keith presses, face hot. “You've met him, and he's not exactly suave, is he? Besides, I thought he was more into Allura.”

The two exchange another look. Keith really wishes they’d stop doing that.

“You'd be surprised at how charming Lance can be when he's not even trying. He makes a lot of friends, you know? And -” Pidge looks as though she's trying to swallow a golf ball - “he's not exactly physically repulsive, I guess. Lotor’s into that.”

“You’ve gotta up your game, man. Lance never notices when people actually like him - he just overthinks it, gets flustered, and assumes that it’s completely one sided. You’ll have to spell it out. What would you even say to him?”

Pidge’s eyes fall back to the screen propped up on her knees. “He’d probably shoot something for him. Then he’d like, kiss him unexpectedly, get embarrassed, ignore him, and act all aloof. And then he’d go back to the Blade of Marmora again, and disappear forever,” Pidge explains sagely, arms crossed over her chest. “Lance will have to get married to Lotor because he’ll be out of options, and we’ll be stuck with the bitch forever.”

“I would not!” Keith protests, a bizarre image of Lance swooning in a wedding dress flashing in his mind.

“That sucks, dude. Your plan’s terrible.” Hunk informs him, shaking his head. Keith grabs a pillow, flops onto the ground, and attempts to smother himself with it. Once his (completely involuntary) muffled screams fade away, he peeks out at the pair. Pidge‘s eyes are still glued to her technology, but she looks wholly unimpressed. “Go to hell,” Keith grumbles. Pidge gives him a Cheshire smile.

“I’ll save you a seat.”

 

* * *

 

“Coran, I need to ask you something.”

Keith steels himself for the third most awkward conversation of his life. His only saving grace is that he doesn’t have to ask Pidge.

Coran gives him a funny look, but answers his questions to the best of his ability without asking too many of his own, which Keith is eternally grateful for.

”Although there’s no indicator that a crossbreeding between humans and Galra could result in male pregnancy, in other species, particularly genderfluid ones, it’s certainly a possibility. Why?” Coran asks, peering closely at Keith. “You haven’t gotten into any sort of trouble, have you? I know that things can seem new and exciting in the beginning, and it’s really none of my business, but I must insist that you see to it that you are _safe._ ”

” _I’m_ not pregnant!” Keith yelps, indignant. “I was asking - for a friend...” he trails off, realizing just how unconvincing that sounded, but Coran’s face brightens.

”Thank goodness for that,” he chortles, clapping him on the shoulder. “Although if you wanted a biology lesson on the Galra, you’d probably have better luck discussing it with Lotor.”

”I’ll pass,” Keith says quickly, and heads for the exit, trying very hard not to sprint.

 

* * *

 

“But Lotor always trains with one of you three?” Shiro, Allura, and Lance glance at each other.

“The more experience we have, the better. Training with an unfamiliar partner will be a good change of pace,” Shiro says decidedly. He's out of his paladin armor, but at Hunk’s withering glare, he seems to be reconsidering the decision.

Lotor turns to Hunk, arm extended, but he only glares and scoots in the opposite direction. “I'm going with Lance.”

“Oh, that’s - that's all right.”

He shakes it off and looks around. Keith doesn't regularly train with most of the paladins anymore (that he knows of) and Shiro and Allura are nowhere to be found, so that just leaves -

“What’s up, Loturd?” He looks down, and the green paladin looks back up at him with wide amber eyes, warm and trusting. She smiles at him with the gaiety of a child, soft and pretty. He relaxes. “This'll be fun…”

 

* * *

 

“YOU SET HIM ON FIRE!” Shiro yells. In the background, Hunk and Allura rush to put out the flames while Lance screams like a siren.

“He was asking for it,” Pidge argues, affronted. “He tried to pick me up.”

“It was for combat training!” Lotor protests from the corner, armor singed and smoking.

“How did you even make a fire? Your bayard is a grappling hook!” Shiro exclaims, beyond exasperated. The billowing smoke has cleared, but the distinct stench of something burnt lingers in the air. Despite his watering eyes, Lotor can't help but stare in awe, at so much anger pent up in such a tiny human.

“We have long since moved past the primitive means of matches, Shiro,” she sniffs, “and I can set fire to anything I want.”

“Not when it's a person!”

“Lotor isn't a person, he's an ‘it’. Plus, you're not my actual mom, so it's not like you can tell me what to do. I'm an adult.”

“You're like, twelve.”

“Shut up, Lance, I'm fifteen.”

“So, basically twelve.”

Lotor rounds on her, humility forgotten and admiration aside. His hair is disheveled, and his face is raked with scratches from where she clawed at him _with her hands._ Sparring with her was the shortest and most vicious fight of his life. Lotor doesn't care how much he needs to retake the empire; he didn't sign up for this shit.

“Who cares how old she is? Twelve hundred years still renders you a child with no impulse control.”

“I'll render you a -”

“ - fucking gremlin.”

“Basic bitch.”

 

* * *

 

Month two of being back in the Castle stretches into month three, and eventually month three-and-a-half. It creeps up on him, which should be nearly impossible, considering the fact that Keith has been counting the days himself. He doesn’t plan on leaving anytime soon, and it’s not the first time that he acts without a plan, but he doesn’t trust himself or the days because it’s all too good to be true.

He knows that it's too good to be true when he tastes ice cream out in space; real ice cream, not made from advanced technology or some alien variation that comes close, but not quite. It's real milk and sugar and whatever else Hunk put into it, and Keith has never been more grateful to have a freaking cow on board the ship.

“You know, this is pretty good, but sea salt ice cream is the best,” Lance says between slurps. “It tastes best in the summer, out on the beach when it's hot. Not _desert_ hot, but hot enough that the sand hurts when you stand on it too long.” As it turns out, Lance is talkative when he's hungry. Keith doesn't mind.

“There are beaches out there, somewhere,” Keith says, thinking back to the planets they had visited, and the variety of water there. Some had lilac lakes so deep that the depths bled into a plum red, and others were ringed pink and translucent, like sugary drinks without cherries on top. “Maybe not like Earth’s, but they're out there.”

The stars gleam from outside the windows, no planets in sight, and Keith is reminded, not for the first time, that they're floating in the middle of a sea of dead stars.

“Desert heat isn't so bad, when you get used to it. It's probably like a beach when it's hot, just...everywhere.”

“Oh?”

“I wouldn't know,” he shrugs. “I've never been to an ocean until we got to space.”

“That's blasphemy.”

“Ooh, big word for you.”

“It is, though,” Lance finishes his cone, licking off the ice cream that had dripped onto his wrist, and Keith's eyes follow the movement, “we should fix that. When we get back home, I'll take you. The team, too - you'll love it.”

“I will?”

“I've never met anyone who hasn't,” Lance grins at him then, toothy and real, and Keith is taken aback because Lance is _beautiful._

 

* * *

 

 

“Keith, you’re getting to that age...I think it’s time you learned how to destroy that pussy.”

“What the hell.” Keith almost has a heart attack, right then and there; this is how Shiro must feel, perpetually contemplating throwing himself out the airlock. “ _Why_ would you say that? Why would you _ever_ say that?”

“What?” Krolia frowns. “The green paladin said that it would help if I brought it up that way. Something about “common Earth culture” or…”

“Fucking...fucking hell…” Keith covers one side of his face with his hand. “Don’t listen to Pidge unless it’s for a mission, okay? It's probably just a meme, or something weird or - just - wait - why would Pidge be telling you -?” The realization that Pidge and Krolia might actually be _friends_ is absolutely terrifying.

“You've already developed mating habits,” Krolia says _._ “I’ve seen it firsthand, and you couldn’t be more obvious. He’s clearly not getting the hint, though, so you should probably work on that.”

Keith squints. “What are you talking about?”

“The boy you keep following around.” Krolia knows Lance’s name by now, but it’s fun to watch Keith go red in an instant.

“I’m not following him!”

“I’ve asked your entire team, and it sounds to me like you’ve been following him. I could be wrong, but I thought it was obvious. Galra tend to go through similar courting processes; it's more of a biological thing than it is cultural, but it still varies between partners.”

“What.”

It’s not an invitation, but she takes it anyway.

“It starts,” she begins, “with aggression, playing hard to get, that sort of thing. Basically, it's the equivalent of yanking someone’s pigtails. You need to make sure that they can take it, that the two of you are both worthy of the other. A relationship is based on mutual trust in each other. As it progresses, you'll start seeing signs of possessive behavior. It's a natural response, and even someone without Galra blood who is engaged in courtship would rise to the bait.

“Your mate in question will respond with a vigorous appetite and a strong urge for affection and validation from others. It’s mostly hormonal receptors, but it can be triggered by hostile interactions with suitors,” she explains. “The aggression can bolster existing insecurities, and prompt them to seek comfort.

“It's like a shifting game of cat and mouse, and two partners will play hard to get. Believe me, when I courted your father, it was a constant struggle. He kept ignoring the meat I left at his doorstep, and I'd have to keep hunting to replace it before it went bad. Sometimes, I'd disappear for hours on end, and when he went out looking for me, I'd attack from behind to keep his reflexes sharp. He loved it.” She smiles fondly.

“Did he, though?” Keith asks shrewdly.

“We made you, didn't we? I didn't half-ass my courting rituals, Keith,” Krolia snaps. He holds up his hands in mock-surrender. “If you think that’s strange, then you’ll never get around to anything, will you? How do you feel about biting?”

“Biting?”

“It's marking. There's a gland right here,” she points to a part of her neck, “and biting it during mating is like claiming your mate as your own; it'll change your pheromones to be specifically geared towards them, if it isn't already.”

“Um.” This is one fucked up sex talk, he thinks. Even Shiro’s attempt had been better.

“I’m not trying to embarrass you, Keith,” she says, sensing his discomfort. “I just have the feeling that your father couldn’t exactly give you an accurate crash course on biology. I didn’t want you to be...shocked by anything when the time came.”

“No, no. It’s...fine. Anything else?” he asks, already regretting his response.

“Your senses may be overwhelmed at times, especially in distress. Galra have a proficient sense of smell compared to humans,” she says after a moment. “You’re still growing, Keith, and chances are that you'll unlock new senses and urges along the way that are completely natural.” At his fixed look of horror, she laughs. “Think of it more as primal instincts that can be honed in battle.” He visibly relaxes. “Or a second puberty,” she adds thoughtfully.

Keith looks like he's about to be sick again, and she makes a mental note to inspect the kitchens later.

 

* * *

 

“Hey, Keith,” comes a voice from behind him. Shiro smiles and clasps his shoulder. “Krolia,” he nods, nothing short of respectful. From what she knows of Shiro, this is the man who raised her child in adolescence. The black paladin is a handsome man, well-built and reassuring (he reminds her of her desert man, but the shock of white hair and the Herculean planes of his face shatter that illusion well enough).

Her eyes narrow at the contact. It should be an easy movement, like he’s done it before, and Keith seems to think so, unfazed - but Krolia sees the calculation and the borderline discomfort. She’s seen it for a while now in the way the man interacts with his team; they trust him, but sometimes, the green paladin will close her screen before he comes too near, or Lance will attempt to shy away when he enters the room.

This is a man in a new skin.

The black paladin turns back to Keith. “Allura and I wanted to talk to you - we just got off from a call with Kolivan, and-”

Krolia steps forward, hands on her hips. “What? Does he need us to return to base? Why wasn’t I alerted?”

“It was specifically intended for Voltron and -”

Krolia paused, tilting her head and inhaling sharply. Her nose twitches.

“You smell like lies and cheap ramen,” she hisses under her breath.

Shiro blinks, taken aback, and Keith raises an eyebrow.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

 

* * *

 

“What’s the deal with your mom, dude?”

“Krolia?”

“Do you have another mom on this ship?” Lance asks, eyebrow quirked. Allura and Shiro act a bit like a parental unit, Keith thinks, but decides against bringing that up. “She keeps sniffing me at weird times and saying weird things. The other day, she told me that I smelled _ripe._ What's that all about? Is it a galra thing?”

“Oh my god.”

“Oh my god is right. And - wait, do you still call your mom by her first name?”

“Yes…? Is that a problem?” he snaps, only a little defensive. Lance waves his hands in front of himself.

“No, no, man, it’s cool. It just seems a little impersonal, that’s all.”

“I did just meet her.”

“Fair enough.”

Silence. Whenever there's silence, Lance wants to say something. Keith nudges his shoulder with his knee and makes a rolling motion with his hands. “Go on,” he prods, and Lance curls inward ever-so-slightly.

“I guess you’re just...pretty lucky.” Lance mutters, not meeting his eyes. Keith snorts.

“Lucky?”

“You have family out here in space.”

“Oh.” So do you, Keith thinks. You have us. You have me. He doesn't say it, though, so he just leans against the wall and slides down to the ground to join Lance. “Tell me more about Marco.”

“And Louis and Veronica?”

“Yeah, them too.”

 

* * *

 

“How did you meet Dad?” Keith asks, tentative. Krolia looks up from the fallen training bot for a moment, then looks down again.

“End training sequence!”

The next bot slumps to the ground, and she flicks sweat from her brow. “My ship malfunctioned; it wasn’t pilot error, it was mechanical error, and Earth’s gravitational pull fucked with my engine. I crashed outside of his house. He came at me with a shovel.” She shrugs. “We fought. He lost. I bit him.”

“Right there?” Keith’s voice comes out like a squeak, and Krolia shoots him a glare that’s almost withering.

“No, Keith, _not_ right there. I just bit him - in the hand. He tried to punch me in the face, so it was a pretty normal reaction.”  _Are you an idiot_ is heavily implied, and he almost shrinks.

“Oh.”

“You haven't mated, then,” she clarifies for what feels like the hundredth time. He scowls and crosses his arms, and looks like a _child_ for heaven’s sake, she thinks, exasperated.

“No. Like I said, he doesn't even like me. He thinks we have some sort of rivalry going on, and I -”

“Do you?”

“No! I just end up going along with it. It's not my fault he feels like he has to prove himself every second. I just...react.”

“Ah.” She hums to herself. “You fell in love with him, though? Despite it all?”

Despite it all, because of it all. Keith thinks back to the moment when it toed the line over attraction and grudging respect and turned into something that felt more right with the world than his own heart in his ribs. Lance was making him spew poetics, dammit.

“I - we had a bonding moment. He was half unconscious. I sort of cradled him in my arms,” he admits.

“That's pretty gay, Keith.”

He sighs, resigned.

“...I know.”

 

* * *

 

“I think you’re possibly my only friend on this ship,” Lotor confesses quietly from the floor of the training deck.

The tip of Lance’s sword drops.

“What?”

“Maybe not my only friend - Allura and I _are_ making quick diplomatic progress that will help bridge the gap between Galra Empire and the rest of the galaxy, don’t get me wrong,” he adds hastily. “But - the black paladin doesn’t trust me yet, I can tell, and I don’t blame him. The small one hates me, I’m pretty sure. They keep calling me names. And the yellow paladin never forgave me after I offered constructive criticism on his brûlée. It was very good, but the sugar wasn’t crystallized particularly well.”

“Hunk’s cooking is amazing,” Lance’s voice drops ten degrees, despite himself. The prince backtracks, panicked.

“I’m know it is, I just -” Lotor’s jaw tightened. “I thought that what this team would appreciate most from me would be honesty, and I’ve tried to give it to the best of my abilities. I’m sorry if I came across as rude, I just -” he sighs and runs his fingers through his hair. Lance tries not to stare. “Training is vital to staying alert and ready, even with my father incapacitated. But it’s most enjoyable because I have someone to train with, someone who doesn’t look at as though I’m about to grow two heads.”

“Or turn on us and take control of the ship?”

“Or turn on you and take control of the ship,” the prince agrees, folding his hands under his head. “I have allies and comrades, but it’s hard to tell how much of them actually like me. I’m glad you do, at least?”

“Who said I liked you?”

“I’d hope you did. Otherwise, I really am all alone on this godforsaken ship,” he says with a laugh.

“Thanks for your honesty,” Lance says, nudging him with his broadsword. “But you're not alone.” Lotor smiles at him, wide and sincere. Lance can't trace a bit of honey.

Someone watches from the doorway.

 

* * *

 

“Why did you come back?” Shiro asks. His voice is as kind as he remembers.

Keith looks up, startled, and then looks away (guilty). Shiro only waits, patient as ever. He's known Keith for years, and he doesn't need to ask why he's in the hangar in the middle of the night.

Keith steps away from Red, reluctant but willing. She's not mine anymore, he reminds himself. She belongs to Lance (or, rather, he belongs to her).

“I didn't outlive my usefulness, if that's what you mean,” he says wryly. At Shiro’s stricken expression, he backtracks. “Relax, Shiro. I'm still working with the Blades, just - from a distance. I'm still doing missions with them, but Kolivan and I agreed that a scenery change could be - beneficial. Easier to recuperate.”

“Ah.”

“And Krolia…” Keith trails off, and Shiro’s expression drops with empathy.

“Your mother?”

“I have a lot of questions,” he admits into the open air. “I’m glad she’s here, you have no idea, but now I think I have more questions than before.”

“Soul-searching, much? And here I was thinking that you outgrew that emo phase,” Shiro shakes his head sadly, and Keith punches his shoulder. In some other universe, Keith is pretty sure that Shiro is his real brother. He’s not sure that it’s not this one.

“Shut up.”

He laughs.

“You changed a lot when you were gone, didn’t you?” Shiro says thoughtfully, sneaking a glance at him. “You’ve grown.” Keith doesn’t really agree - he feels like he’s the same as he always was, just out of his depth. Maybe he has changed, though, and he just didn't notice. Maybe they all did.

“Maybe, but I’m back now. That's what matters.”

“Hi back-now, I’m Shiro.”

“ _What.”_  Jesus, not him too.

Shiro clears his throat, mortified. “Too much time with Pidge,” he offers as way of explanation, and Keith just takes it. “I meant, I’m glad that you’re here. You’ll always have a place with Voltron.” In that moment, Shiro looks a little more real than he did before, more solid than the outline in the dark. “Speaking of which, what did Krolia mean earlier? Something about lies and ramen?”

“Ah…”

 

* * *

 

“Pidge,” Krolia presses the file into her hands. “That hunch I mentioned earlier? I followed up on it a while ago, but Kolivan just got back to me. Bad news.”

“Shiro,” Pidge affirms, a strange tautness to her face. Krolia looks at her closely, at her skin and her eyes, and marvels at how young this girl is, how clever.

Children are not made for war or espionage, but that doesn't mean that they can't excel nonetheless.

“You specialize in intel. Have you ever caught wind of an Operation Kuron?”

“Krolia, what's going on?” Pidge asks, intuitive but weary, and slowly opens the lid of her computer to insert the file. The screen lights up.

“I thought there was only one fake bitch on this ship, but it turns out there were two.”

Pidge almost chokes.

 

* * *

 

She stumbles across him as she’s dragging herself up the stairs, eyes weighed down by sleep. When she trips over a form in the dark, her eyes go wide, and she lets out a strangled half shriek before clapping a hand over her mouth and telling her racing heart to _calm down._

“Keith, is that - oh, Pidge.” Calm down, Pidge. No one is going to hurt you. “I’m so sorry!” The figure says, already recovered from when she practically bowled him over. The lights are off, but the dim glow of stars and the white shock of hair help her identify him, even without her glasses on.

“It’s fine,” she manages, half-whispering. He stands, and she’s too aware of their size difference, the way his shoulders seem hulking and huge in the dark. He moves aside, gesturing for her to keep going, but she gulps and takes hold of the railing instead, hauling herself up a few steps to match his height.

“You should go to bed.”

“You too.” She can see the whites of his eyes, and wonders if they would change if his Galra arm was activated.

Maybe they have changed, and she just didn't notice.

“Thanks, Pidge.” he sighs wearily. She gives him an odd look, trying to communicate more, but can’t. This Shiro still remembers everything. The Garrison. The team. Keith leaving. Is this their Shiro? Can memories make a person? Does it matter? It matters if he’s alive, she decides. That makes all the difference.

“Shiro,” she says slowly, “no one else is going to leave, you know.” Pidge sets a tiny hand on his shoulder. “I promise.”

 

* * *

 

Becoming infatuated with Lance is either the best thing he's ever done, or the worst thing. In the days that stretch with silence and sweat and figures that move and bleed too fast for him to keep track of, he's had plenty of time to reflect.

_“We are a good team,” Lance said weakly, and it’s as though Keith has sunk into a dream and he’s seeing for the first time._

_After a moment, Lance’s breathing becomes labored, his eyelids flutter shut, and he goes limp. Keith catches him before he hits the ground, just holds him, and doesn’t let go._

_He can’t._

Then he wakes up, and everything is abruptly normal. Something has changed, and Lance doesn’t even know. It hurts more than Keith thought it would.

Maybe he doesn’t hate Keith, not anymore, or maybe he never hated him to begin with. But sometimes Lance is _mean_ without realizing it, and at this point, Keith is conditioned to react to him no matter what. It’s not so much a weakness as it is a character flaw. Keith finds that when Lance’s attention isn't trained on him, he seeks it out, because they have an equilibrium, dammit, and he needs to feel as though all is right in the world.

Maybe Lance doesn’t hate Keith, but Keith thinks that Lance thinks he does. They should be past this by now, into the friendship stage and onto the holding-hands stage at least, because that’s how the process goes in his mind.

It’s frustrating, because all Lance seems to expect him to do is fight him, and he resents him when he does but ignores him when he doesn’t, so they walk this strange, thin line between the all-consuming love of the century and the rivalry of two boys vying for the other's attention.

Keith knows which one is which most of the time, but he's not sure if Lance does.

 

* * *

 

Krolia has never been part of a team. The Blade of Marmora is a unit, yes, functioning under a common ideology and synchronized self-preservation. But it's not a team; watching someone else's back is necessary for the greater good of the cause, but anything beyond that isn't mandatory. Krolia had had the same few partners for years before she crash landed on Earth, and she knows for a fact that they would've all left her for dead if she wasn't good at her job.

She would've done the same.

Regardless, there's not a lot of love there and even less trust, so she's careful (not as careful as her desert man, who sees ghosts where there are shadows and skeletons where there are trees). Krolia is the sort of person who takes it upon herself to analyze and categorize the people she meets and embeds into her life, on degrees of trust.

Kolivan is an employer (with a grizzled conscience and silent footsteps).

Keith’s father is her distraction (a clinical mistake that makes a crash landing worth it and pushes a war out into the distance. He doesn't trust her at first and she doesn't know if he trusted her in the end, but she trusts him enough to leave. That counts for something).

Keith Kogane is her son.

_(It sounds like friendloverchild in quick succession, firing through her brain and ricocheting around in her skull like bullets)_

It starts with the Blades and ends with a child, and Krolia doesn't know which one is more likely to end up dead. She must leave one behind, and it kills her, _it kills her,_ because a crying child needs a mother, and her rugged desert man can barely take care of himself.

Well, that's not true. He lasted that long.

She wonders later if the child hates her, if he grew up feeling her absence like nothing else and he's withered away (her worst nightmare is that he hasn't felt anything at all and he's grown up without her). She falls in love before she remembers that she's still _selfish._

_selfish_

_selfish_

_selfish_

 

* * *

 

“Lance, late to a meal? That's a first,” Shiro says with a small chuckle.

“Maybe all the training today wore him out?”

“He's still in his room, I think. He was saying something about ‘business he had to take care of’.”

“Gross, Coran. Nobody asked for that,” Pidge groans, retching. Shiro tries to make eye contact with him, but Keith flushes and looks away. Coran continues, oblivious to Pidge’s obvious discomfort and the way that Keith had slunk low in his seat.

“Now, it’s perfectly natural. I remember when I was a young lad, and I'd get up to all sorts of -”

“Nobody asked for that either,” Hunk pipes up.

“Where did Lotor go?” Allura asks with an anxious nod towards the two empty seats. “Is he inspecting the lions by himself again? I appreciate his...investment - but I'm not sure I'm comfortable with -”

“Nah, the last time I saw him, he was with Lance -”

 _What would Lotor need with_ \- an image of Lotor entering Lance’s room alone, smirking as the door slid shut behind him flashes in Keith’s mind. The implication has Keith pushing his bowl of goo away from himself with clammy hands. The room feels twenty degrees hotter, and his stomach churns. It's not because of the food.

“That fucker,” Keith growls. He stands, shoving back his chair. The entire table (Pidge has an expression of utmost glee, Shiro with caution, and Allura in interest. Hunk only looks worried, as though he’s waiting for something to come crashing through the ceiling any moment now) looks up at the abrupt screech of the chair legs against the floor, but Keith is already up and moving, hand shifting unconsciously to the hilt of his blade.

“What do you have?” Shiro calls after him, his voice riddled with concern. “What's that in your hand?”

“A knife!” Keith yells back, already headed for Lance’s room.

“No!” Shiro barks while Krolia simultaneously whispers, “Yes.”

At the head of the table, Allura massages her temples, eyes closed and praying for death.

From behind Shiro, Pidge snickers like a maniac, and Krolia doesn't bother to hide her grin.

“He's going to fight for his mate,” she informs the table. _Finally._ “If he's lucky, blood will be shed. You may want to cover your ears after the first few minutes. Mating rituals can be intense.”

Shiro looks as though he wants to say something; he opens his mouth, closes it, and sits back down. He joins Allura in silent prayer.

 

* * *

 

“You think you’re love with the red paladin,” Lotor says flatly, “don’t you?”

Lotor said he wanted to talk, but it felt like an interrogation. This was possibly the worst love confession Lance had ever received, and his resume wasn't exactly overflowing.

“What? Pfft, no, I’m - wait wait wait, _I’m_ the red paladin. He’s not even a paladin anymore! And what does that have to do with -”

“I seem to recall you welcoming him _back_ to the team, but you're saying that he’s not actually part of your team anymore?”

“Yes! I mean no! I mean -”

“I see the way he looks at you, you know. It’s written all over his face. But you’re not in love with him,” he says dismissively. “You can’t be. You deserve better, Lance. You said it yourself, he’s been gone for months. _Months._ What kind of lover would he make, if he was absent all the time?”

“I - wait, I thought you were cool with him? Didn’t you say you wanted to bond with the whole half-Galra thing, and show him that you weren’t trying to be a replacement, literally last week?”

“Um, well, yes. I did. But that has nothing to do with this.”

“You brought it up!”

“The point is,” Lotor sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose between forefinger and thumb, “that I understand what he means to you, but maybe you’re confused, not in love with him.”

“Listen, fuck-knuckle, I never said that I was in love with anyone!”

“Are you trying to tell me that you're not attracted to him?” Lotor leaned over and gave him a quick sniff. “You're a lot of things, but you're not a liar.”

“You think I'm attracted to him, but I can't be in love with him?”

“I know you, Lance. I’ve been training with you for _months_ and I know how you think, what you think. You’re better than that, Lance. You’re not like the rest of them.”

“What's that supposed to mean?” He exclaims indignantly. “I'm not like the rest of the _peasants,_  is that it?”

“What? No! It's - I meant - I shared my hair products with you!” Lotor cries. He looks like he's at his wit’s end. “Do you know how many people in the galaxy would literally _kill_ to get that information?”

“Um…”

“A lot, Lance. A lot of people would kill to get even my shampoo brand, and I’ve spent so much effort on anonymous purchasing and false leads that I...sometimes, I wonder if it’s even worth it.” He sniffs. “What I’m trying to say is that even if you don’t - even if you don’t feel the same way, or you don’t think you do, you mean a lot to me, and one day, maybe you could.” He reaches out to trace his jawline, and Lance only just realizes how close he is. His fingertips are cool, remarkably so, and his eyes gleam like jewels in the darkness. “He left. He left your team, and he left you, and he could leave you again and _you don't deserve that._ You're better than that. You're beautiful. If you don't know you're beautiful, then you don't know yourself that well, Lance.”

“Is that another song you're writing? Because I've already heard that one.”

“What?”

“Fight me, dude.”

Screw him. Screw this. Lance has already had his gay awakening, and he doesn't need someone else to tell him differently. Keith flashes in his mind - his small smirk and his dumb hair and the way his eyes softened in a dull purple haze and the feeling of his hand clenched in his before Lance’s eyes slid shut and the dark took him - and then he thinks of Keith when he's back for the first time, looking like he's walking into a lion’s den of the people he loves and looking as though he'll be eaten alive. Lance? His rage is red and white and reaches into the heavens.

“Fuck this. Yes, I am, I’m gay as shit. Bring it, motherfucker. Bring it!”

In hindsight, it’s not the smartest thing to say to someone at least a foot taller than he is, but Lance is too hopped up on adrenaline to care.

He does care a little bit, though, when Lotor quite literally sinks to his knees and starts to beg.

The door slides open, and light spills into the room.

Keith.

 

* * *

 

“Wait, did she just say, ‘blood will be shed’?”

“I wouldn't worry about it. Keith’s not moping anymore, and he can probably pull Lance’s head out of his ass, so it’s a win-win situation. Lotor is a reasonable sacrifice.”

“Pidge!”

“Am I wrong?”

“...”

“That's what I thought.”

Yelling (Keith). Shrieking (Lance).

A crash (Lotor?).

Another scream pierces the air, and Shiro tenses. Krolia lays a comforting hand on his arm.

“The prince is a whiny bitch. Let him be.”

 

* * *

 

“He has the power of Shiro _and_ anime on his side. Don't fuck with him,” Pidge clicks her tongue and shakes her head. From the ground, Lotor is curled into the fetal position. “C’mon, let's get to the pods before you bleed out,” she says with a sigh, grabbing him by the arm and hoisting him over a small shoulder.

The pity in her voice is sour and almost tangible, but his head is ringing so hard that he barely takes note. The indignity, Lotor thinks, of being dragged down a hallway by a twelve-year-old elf, has no parallel in the universe.

He lets out a loud groan.

 

* * *

 

The team finds out about it eventually, thanks to Lotor, who seems to think that he's on his deathbed (it was just a broken nose, Keith thinks, not worth a pod). The more blood he loses, though, the more talkative he gets, and suddenly Keith regrets having him taken out of the pod in the first place and into the infirmary. It was the anesthetic, Lotor will insist later, but Keith knows better.

It’s an offhand comment, but Keith knows from the malicious lilt of his mouth that it’s anything but. The room dissolves into silence, and he leaves as quietly as he came, but nowhere near as inconspicuous. Shiro makes to go after him, but Krolia grabs his forearm and doesn’t let go, steel in her grip and her eyes. Keith doesn’t know if he actually concedes, doesn’t know if he actually wants Shiro with him right now or not, and only knows that he wants to be alone.

 

* * *

 

Keith tried to kill himself.

You're in shock, says a helpful voice in his head. It sounds suspiciously like Pidge.

Keith tried to kill himself.

For us, the voice reminds. For the greater good.

Keith tried to kill himself, Lance thinks, and it winds him, grabs his lungs and squeezes and sends air _whooshing_ from his chest.

Keith’s heart is a beating, bleeding vessel of good intention, Lance thinks, that mortars the road to hell.

What a terrifying, magnificent thing.

 

* * *

 

Lance finds him eventually, because it’s Lance. It takes him a while, probably because he checked the training room first, but when his door slides open without warning, Keith knows that it’s Lance, because Shiro would’ve knocked, and it’s such a Lance sort of thing to do.

The door closes behind him, and Keith’s throat constricts because it’s an enclosed space and Lance is only a few feet away. His face is blank, devoid of emotion, and that terrifies him, because Lance is supposed to be one of the most readable human beings he’s ever met. He looks him in the eye for a moment, and it's like neither one of them can breathe.

Then Lance opens his mouth, and the silence implodes.

 

* * *

 

The Alteans, Krolia, Lotor, and the paladins can hear them from down the hallway where they've been eavesdropping (Pidge), monitoring (Shiro), or just there for the show (Lotor). They catch snippets of strangled conversation; “- _suicide_ _mission_ -” and “- _trying to help_ -” filtered through the closed door.

Shiro looks physically pained.

Krolia looks away.

 

* * *

 

“I didn't have a home!”

“You had _us!"_

“I KNOW - I - I know.” His voice cracks like a broken note, and Lance can see him curl inward like a puppet tangled in its own string. “I thought that maybe if - maybe if you guys made it out -”

“And if you didn't?”

“- it would be okay. I could have _helped._ I could have done _something._ I didn't have to watch all of you -”

“You'd be dead, though. You’d be _dead._  How was that going to - how could you think that that could have _helped us?_ ” Lance is shrieking now, high and shrill like a _girl_ but he can't bring himself to care. “What were we supposed to do after that, huh? Get over it?” Keith is shaking his head, trying to force words out, but Lance presses on, until Keith has backed himself against the wall (his pulse is ripping its way through his veins and his lungs are constricts and he’s like a wild animal trapped between corridors).

“I - I thought -”

“You fucking idiot! You weren’t thinking, were you? You weren’t thinking about how you - how it would affect the team!” How it would affect _me,_ Lance realizes bitterly. “You _never think_ , do you?”

The words are barely out of his mouth when Keith grabs a fistful of his shoulder armor, slams him against the wall, and leans in close with a snarl on his lips.

“All the time,” he bites out. Their positions are switched.  His breath ghosts across Lance’s face, and he thinks that maybe he could count Keith’s eyelashes from this close. They're so close. “I thought about it all the time, Lance. What if I didn’t leave? What if I didn’t leave the team like I _always do_ and I just - stayed. For once.”

Something desperate starts to swirl in Keith’s gut, rising and swelling like a symphony. His hands are clammy, and he can feel his cheeks flushing red as though he's been burned, but Lance is _so close_ and in near-tears and the image swims in his eyes. “I think about Red and how much I miss her inside my head and what it felt like to fly in my lion and not - not be alone.” He stumbles over his own voice. “I think about how glad I was that Shiro was there with me, because he was the closest thing I had to family and I just wanted him back. I think about Pidge telling me what to do and Hunk’s cookies and Allura and Coran and - and how I wasn’t alone because my _team_ was with me, and how dumb I was because I - you -” he takes a deep breath that rattles through his chest like dust. “I was in love with you, okay?”

It fights against him, but he forces it out, and it’s like a gunshot in an open room. All Keith can hear is his own ragged breaths and the crescendo of his own heartbeat. Claustrophobia molds the room, until all he can see is Lance, who looks so lost.

“What?”

His stomach drops, and so do his hands.

The tension in his chest unwinds and tightens again. He stares at the ground, hands clenched into fists.

“I was in love with you, and you didn’t love me back.”

“Keith -” Lance is getting closer, _closer_ and they could almost touch. Lance is reaching for him, hand outstretched, and -

Keith does the first thing he can think of.

He turns tail and runs.

 

* * *

 

Lance is left in the dust (in the middle of Keith’s room), dumbfounded.

Keith. Feral, beautiful, unprecedented Keith, who just told him that he _loved_ him.

Keith just ran away.

“What the hell.”

 

* * *

 

“Which way?” Lance demands, skidding through the doorway.

Pidge is leaning against the wall across the hallway and jerks a thumb to the left. “That way.”

He takes off.

 

* * *

 

“You're the best pilot in the universe.”

It's nothing he hasn't heard before, from the Garrison, from Shiro, but coming from _Lance,_ it means so much more. It sounds so much worse. “I'm not -”

“Don't lie,” Lance cuts him off. “Don't lie to me. You're better than Shiro, and you're probably better than Lotor is. You're the best, and Red chose you. Voltron chose you.”

 _We chose you,_ Lance thinks.

“Red chose you too, Lance.” Keith still doesn't look at him, can't turn around.

“Did she?” he asks.

 _Yes,_ Keith thinks.  _I did, too._

“That's not why I left. What I said earlier. I meant it, but I just want you to know that it was more complicated than that, and you didn’t drive me away, or something stupid like that. It wasn’t you, it was -”

“I know.” Lance steps closer, but he doesn't try to touch him. “You never asked, though.”

“You were never interested!” Keith snaps. His eyes are glued to the ground. He won't look at him, he won't. “You acted like you hated me half of the time, and the other time - I don’t know. I wasn’t sure. And you like girls. You were like...my straight guy crush. It wasn’t going to happen anyway.”

“I didn’t hate you, idiot.”

“Could’ve fooled me -”

“I never hated you - I - I liked you. A lot. I wanted to _be_ you, and I think that I just couldn't handle it. And I do like girls, but I like guys, too. I wasn’t your straight guy crush. I’m gay. Or, well - I’m bi,” Lance scratches his head. “I was your bi guy crush.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. And you never asked about that, either.”

“About what?”

“If it could’ve happened,” Lance says, breathless, like he's had the wind knocked out of him. Keith looks up, an unreadable look in his eyes. He moves closer again and prays that Keith won't bolt.

Their height difference is small but existent, and it's only more obvious when Keith must tilt his face up to maintain eye contact.

“And?”

Lance takes Keith’s face in his hands, tracing his jaw with his fingers.

One of them closes the distance.

 

* * *

 

Keith wakes up as early and abruptly as he did with the Blades, but he gets used to it this time. There isn’t a single sun in space, there are millions, so Keith rises of his own accord when Voltron isn’t yanked from crisis to crisis in the dead of night. Lance is more of a morning person, and eventually his routine becomes entwined with Keith’s, who gets used to waking up against a sliver of light from behind the door crack of the adjacent bathroom. His own room remains as dusty and hollow as it was before he came back, but he doesn't dwell on it too much. He doesn't sleep in it as often, anyway.

 

* * *

 

Kuron is an anomaly. Black still opens for him, but she doesn't call out to him like she did in the beginning. Come to think of it, she never did, not like Shiro. It leaves another space in Voltron that nobody wants to fill.

“I'm not ready for that,” Lance argues when he brings it up (he refuses to even _try),_ which Keith thinks is bullshit, because he’s seen him in action and how much and how far he’s grown, and Lance has nothing but the untapped potential for leadership, goddammit. Maybe Black just isn’t ready for him. Lance is readier than Keith ever was, and if they don’t count Kuron and they don’t count Shiro, there’s no one else that Keith trusts more to pass the torch to.

Keith finds his place.

He's glad - no, he's relieved that it's _not_ with Black again, because, like Lance, he doesn't think he's ready.  He wasn't ready the first time, and he isn't now, but it's okay, because Allura is.

Black is ready for her.

She said once that pink was a mourning color. She wears it in her armor like pride, like a tribute to her people, and she looks like a warrior. She is. Shiro will be proud.

 

* * *

 

Pidge is wound tight as a drum, but Keith can’t blame her, because this is the second time that she’s had family ripped away and cast somewhere out into the vast expanse of the universe. Shiro was the only one before Matt to call her _Katie_ unironically, and Keith knows firsthand what identity does to a person. He’s on edge too, because Shiro _is_ family and the first thing that he’s known that hasn’t left him of its own accord, and he’ll be damned if he lets something else make that decision for him.

Nevertheless, when he sees Pidge slumped over in the dark, illuminated by the faint glow of her laptop, he gently closes the lid, tucks a blanket under her chin, and lets her sleep.

“We’ll find him,” he murmurs, and she mutters back something incomprehensible. It was probably clever.

 

* * *

 

Krolia is called back for reassignment, and given the choice to refuse or accept. Coming from Kolivan, this is an uncommon act of mercy. She accepts.

“Keith needs you here,” Kuron tells her. It's the first thing he's said to her in a long time, but she doesn't blame him.

“No, he doesn't,” she says gently. There are dark shadows under his eyes, and a five o’clock shadow ghosting his jaw. She looks into his eyes and knows that no one else is on the other side of them.

“He wants you here,” the clone tries again. “You know that you can't contact Voltron unless it's on a safe line, so attending meetings would be your only option. We don't know when you'll get reassigned again.”

“I want to be with him, too,” Krolia says simply, and it's the truth. “But I need to protect him first. I need to do my job to keep him and everyone else safe.”

“And then?”

“And then I'll come back.” Krolia is full of halves, but she doesn't do things halfway. She means it when she says that she'll come back for him. “Keep him safe for me, okay?”

His eyes widen, red from lack of sleep and weary from distrust. Then his brows furrow, and he looks more sure of himself. The shadows start to melt away.

“I will.”

 

* * *

 

“I'm not leaving them.” Lance says staunchly. Lotor narrows his eyes, mulish.

“You're not leaving _him,_ you mean,” his lip curls like a petulant child. The paladin sighs, uncharacteristically patient.

“I'm not leaving my team, and my friends. The universe needs defending.”

“There's no joy in being chained to a lion,” Lotor argues, quietly wounded. “You can still travel the universe, but think of all the places you can go of your own volition. What's better than that?”

“To be free,” Lance says.

Those cold and simple words pierce him like a blade of steel; when he opens his eyes, Lance isn't there anymore. There is a paladin in his place.

“You and I have a very different idea of freedom, Lance.” Lotor thinks of his generals, and whether they were duty-bound or honor-bound, and if it even matters to him anymore. Thoughtful, with his eyes directed to the ceiling, Lotor repeats almost mechanically: “There’s no joy in being chained to a lion.”

“What about your friends?” Lance points out instead. Lotor doesn't have to look over his shoulder; he deciphers his expression just fine.

What does he have left? An empire, for one thing. Allura, the quest for his heritage, _Lance -_ it’s comical, honestly. His father is gone. The clone is a neutralized threat, and the witch will be dealt with soon enough. Allura hasn’t grown tired of him, but her team has, and Lance is in love with a half-Galra that isn’t him. Lotor has an entire galaxy at his disposal, and not much tethering him to this place. He can leave whenever he wants.

 

* * *

 

“He's not leaving, is he?”

Keith doesn't dare to hope.

“Nah.” Lance tucks a strand of hair behind Keith’s ear. The two are laying in bed, with Lance propped upright against the headboard and Keith cradled lazily between his legs, back pressed against his chest. “I think he'll stick around, for now. Who knows? You two could be pretty good friends. You’re actually kind of similar, you know - besides the whole ‘half-galra’ thing.” Lance hums nonchalantly.

“While I was gone, you two were - friends, right? Hunk mentioned that you sparred together. A lot.” Envy creeps up in vines, and Keith struggles to keep his voice level. He dares to ask, “Did you ever - ?” _Did you ever feel for him_ Keith means, _like how I felt for you?_ Lance can feel Keith tense, how measured his breaths are.

“I don't know.” Lance says honestly. “But that's not why he'll stay. He has a place here, and he knows it.”

“You think he could be a paladin,” Keith says flatly. “There aren't any spots left, and even if there was, even if Allura -” he stops himself, takes a breath. “Is Lotor really someone you'd want at the helm?”

Lance is quiet for a while, massaging circles onto Keith’s torso. “No,” he says finally, and Keith relaxes. “But I don't think he should be alone, either. You know what an entire universe can do to loners, don't you?”

 

* * *

 

 Keith can still feel Red sometimes, even when they aren't forming Voltron. It comes in flashes - his head will feel full and his veins will turn to fire and he'll get the distinct feeling that he isn't alone - and then it’ll be gone faster than it came. Months of absence have stretched into a year, but he still recognizes her in his head like he's greeting a memory, or an old friend, and maybe he is. This is a reminder of something ancient and great that knows him, the whole him, inside and out and all the places in between.

He doesn't mention it to Lance, because he thinks that he understands. He left a lion behind, too. Blue is a beauty as old as Red, but she doesn’t have the same heat, the same adrenaline that stirs and burns like the sun. Blue is movement and serenity, and she whispers in his head instead of shouts, sings with the telltale gleam of newborn stars.

Keith’s old lion roars through Lance, and nostalgia tugs at his heartstrings, but Blue purrs in his mind and all’s right with the world.

 

* * *

 

“Let me get this straight; you grabbed Lotor by the hair and tried to slit his throat because you were _jealous?_ ” Lance asks, incredulous and oddly flattered. Keith swats his shoulder a little too hard.

“I wasn't being jealous, you asshole, I was saving your life. He looked like he was trying to suck your soul out of your dick!” he hisses. Lance flushes.

“It wasn't a blowjob, he was confessing his love!” he whisper-shouts, just as the holographic screen lights up.

The Blade of Marmora stares back at them, apart from Kolivan, who pinches the bridge of his nose in a remarkably Shiro-esque impression. From the foreground, Krolia waves, and Keith thinks that he wants to die.

“Hi, mom…”

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

 

_end_

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> The book Krolia references and uses to compare Keith to is The Little Prince, and one of the largest of my many regrets is that I didn't slip in more Hunk, which is unfortunate, because he is actual perfection.  
>   
> A couple people have brought it to my attention, so I’m just gonna clarify that the joke Krolia makes about Lance’s ‘childbearing hips’ does not mean that mpreg is a possibility or is going to happen ever. Tbh (although realistically it’s space, where different planets definitely have different limitations and concepts of gender and reproduction) mpreg is still weird to me and it’s not part of the story. In the context of the scene, she’s either making a joke to mess with Keith, or she really just doesn’t understand human biology very well. It was a prank y’all that’s it ****  
> **  
> **  
> ALSO I don’t know if it was unclear but with Kuron out of the picture as a paladin, Allura steps up to pilot Black, Lance stays with Red, and Keith is accepted by Blue, so they’re switched now.  
>  ****
> 
> **  
> **  
> ****This is my first Klance/Voltron fic and reviews would be so very much appreciated :)****  
> 


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